...I noted in all my ramblings through the various rhetorical hotspots on the Internets that one of the assertions in his newest book is that Christian and Muslim Arabs have been present in the Palestine Metropolitan Statistical Area since Roman times.
Might be worth noting that Mohammed started receiving his visions in 610 and didn't stop getting them until his death in 632. Western Roman rule of Judea/Syria Palestine ended in the year 330, when control of the area passed to the Eastern Roman empire of Byzantium. Byzantium lost control of Palestine in 613 to the Persians (who weren't Arabs, since they were Persians, and weren't Muslims, since Islam was just then in the process of being revealed), who held it until they were defeated by the Caliph Umar in 638, who really was one of your full-bore Religion of Peace fellows.
Anyway, this only to point out that it's a stretch to say that Muslim Arabs managed to walk around in the Holy Lands during "Roman" times, unless they figured out a way to travel back in time. Which I suppose is possible in Jimmah's world.
But still, if someone with as weak a grasp of this particular time period as I do can figure this out, it makes you wonder if Jimmah has always been such a high-quality igmoranus, or if it's simply the result of getting hit in the head by too many dropped hammers at those Habitat For Humanity homesites.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at December 7, 2006 10:27 AM